This paper is part of a master's degree reasearch and aims to discuss narratives of black female teachers, emphasizing their teacher identities and their racial identities. Results indicate that racial awareness influences how the teachers relate to students and to the teaching process.
In applied linguistics, discussing race has been an increasing concern. Researchers in the field (PENNYCOOK, 1998; JORGE, 2012; ANYA, 2016; KUBOTA, 2014, 2019) argue that race is an important component in the process of learning a second language, since language teaching conveys racialized perspectives of indivuals and cultures and "entails complex relations of power fueled by differences created by racialization" (JORGE, 2012, p. 88). In this sense, it is possible to say that language teaching affects the identities of students and teachers (FERREIRA, 2012; ANYA, 2018). In Brazil, race relations have an important role in society, determining social, economical and cultural aspects and establishing a system that discriminates based on the skin color (GOMES, 2005, 2019; CALWDELL, 2010). In the case of brazilian women, the diferences are highlitghted by the intersection of gender, race and social class, placing black women in the lowest social levels since slavery times (GOMES, 2010; FERREIRA, 2019). Considering the particularities of the brazilian context and the role of race in language learning, this paper is part of a master's degree reasearch and aims to discuss narratives of black female teachers, emphasizing their teacher identities and their racial identities. Understanding identities as multiple and complex (HALL, 2004), the purpose is to analyse how the constitution of these two social identities are intertwined and what are the possible effects of these processes in language teaching. Results indicate that racial awareness influences how black teachers relate to students and to the teaching process. The women encourage their black students to take on central roles in classroom and develop greater concern about preparing materials that approach racial issues.
